Day: May 6, 2014

In defending his proposed Charter of Quebec Values on Tuesday, former Parti Québécois minister Bernard Drainville noted that Henri Brun, a Université Laval expert and sometime constitutional adviser to Quebec governments, gave a favourable legal opinion of the charter.

A Montreal police officer charged with assault in connection with an altercation caught on cellphone had a court date Tuesday, but the hearing was put off until July. Stéfanie Trudeau, who was represented by a lawyer and not at the courthouse herself, was suspended from the force in October 2012 after a video from a cellphone showed her holding a man in a headlock in a stairwell during an arrest and using profanity when relaying details of the scene to her supervisor.

The Public Bike System Co., which showed such promise when it launched the groundbreaking Bixi bike-sharing service in 2009, officially went bankrupt on May 1. The final formality: a May 21 meeting at which creditors will be given a final report on the bankruptcy.

An influential advisory body to the Quebec government has come out against a mandatory Quebec history course in CEGEP, saying it would leave students with only one elective course over two years — and deprive them of much-needed “oxygen” before they hit university. Already the new education minister, Yves Bolduc, has said he was shelving the controversial course, promoted by the defeated Parti Québécois government, while the government continues to study the idea. The mandatory course was to begin as early as this September.

Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products Inc. said it will close down its Fort Frances pulp and paper mill in Northwestern Ontario permanently, citing market conditions and high costs. The mill dates back to the early 1900s and once employed 700. Last January RFP announced an extended shutdown of the remaining paper machine at Fort Frances — the kraft pulp mill and another paper machine had been idled since 2012.